Has anyone ever asked a gym owner to buy a power rack?

[Clyde]

Hello. I belong to two gyms. One is in the same building as my office, and it's an independent, commercial gym (allows the public to join and not just people who work in the building). It is not much to look at, but has a lot of good, old fashioned strength equipment, and the basement is dedicated to barbell training, including turf for prowler, etc. The basement used to be even more of a powerlifter place with multiple racks from what I hear, but today there are two, which is fine, along with a few racks upstairs. The place is never crowded, which is even better.

I also belong to a gym near my home (less than 10 minutes away). This is not a globo-box gym, but a local franchise(?) that has about 6 locations. It's more of your typical "cardio" gym, with rows and rows of treadmills, etc. They do have barbells, benches, dumbells (actually up to 100 lbs), and good cable machines. It's actually pretty nice, crazy spotless, and cheap, to the point that I am not sure how they make any money (e.g., I signed up during a special for 18 months at $8 per month).

However, this gym doesn't have a single power rack. Personally, I won't bench in anything but a power rack, simply because I don't think it's safe and my body is pretty valuable, at least to me.


Has anyone ever asked a gym owner to buy a power rack (or some other piece of equipment) that you wanted to see in the gym? Is it a strange thing to ask for, or pretty common to ask these types of questions? I was curious if I'd come across as jerky by asking. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

[A Schenck]

Others might have some constructive advice for you. But remember, that at $8 per month, they won't be to convinced by what any single member asks for. They would rather you keep paying and never show up.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

I once put a suggestion in the box to equip the gym I went to with a platform, and another bar (I think there were only two at the time, plus a 10Kg one).
A few weeks later a cheap bar appeared, but no platform. It was actually more than I expected.

IPB

[Adam Levine]

Not sure it will help you.

Let's suppose they buy a power rack. It will become popular, and you'll have to deal with all the folks using it for incline push-ups and all sorts of dumb crap. You'll probably never get to use it long enough to get a good 60-90 minute training session in.

-->Adam

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

These types of gyms are not in the training business, they are in the sales business. Clean + Non-intimidating makes more money than meatheads dropping weights in the power rack. Find a gym that is in the training business. If I had a gym like that I wouldn't have a power rack in there either.

[william jackson]

I have worked in a gym for like, 7 years now (wow). Two of the three directors have been very open to suggestions and have updated all sorts of equipment at member's suggestions/requests. My bet is that if you see the owner/director walking around often and can recognize him/her as such, they will be open to suggestions. If you're in a box and the owner lives a 5 hour flight away you might be SOL.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Has anyone ever asked a gym owner to buy a power rack (or some other piece of equipment) that you wanted to see in the gym?

So you don't have to? Might be time to invest in your training.